Final week of class

Last week in class we talked about the ending of Othello and how Iago's power was in his words because in his last line he said that he wasn't going to talk anymore and he doesn't. I think that maybe what Iago could have also been referring to was that he wasn't going to talk anymore because he knew they were going to murder him for the evil he did. Either way, it shows how Iago was able to control people very precisely just by talking to them and inserting ideas that make the person curious and to ask questions. In the last day of class we also went over all of the quizzes we have done since the beginning of the semester. Reviewing the quizzes that we already took helped me remember the stories we had talked about and also to remember what questions I answered wrong in the quiz and during class I was able to point out which ones I got wrong and was able to answer them correctly this time around. I think that many people, like myself, learn more after they review material like quizzes because they know what material they need to know and how the question will look.

I would also like to say that before I took this class, English 231, I had never read any of the stories we read in class. I had never read a shakespeare play because I had always heard that it was difficult to read and that most of them are dumb. I think that after this class I will look into reading more shakespeare because Othello was a good story, it had a good twist, a great villain, and a tragic resolution. The only story that I didn't like to read was the Dao De Jing on Daoism because like we discussed in class, it is very difficult to read, even to Mr. B. I think that Daoism is interesting, but it can be very confusing as well and it requires heavy reading and concentration in order to "understand" it better. Before reading The Ramayana I thought that it was going to be very boring and difficult to read, but it turned out to be the only story that I was able to read without having to look up a lot of words in the dictionary because most of it was straight forward. My favorite story that we read in class was Beowulf because he was a great warrior and was happy to proclaim that he was. I think that Beowulf is a superhero because everything he did in the story was to protect the weak, even though he was also being cocky at the same time. At the end, he died because of his stubbornness of wanting to fight a dragon without any armor to show his people that he was a good king and a good warrior, which were great values in those times.

I also liked how the class was structured, the stories we read, and how we had to blog every week about things related to class because a lot of people, including myself, don't talk in class. I have had other english classes were we didn't have to blog and in class it was really quiet and I think that blogging is a good alternative for participation for people that are shy to bring up something in class.


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Othello Act 4 and Act 5

Last week in class we discussed Act 4 and we talked about how Iago controls Othello by making Othello think about his insecurities: being a moor, being older than Desdemona, and not knowing much about women. I think that Iago is very clever because he is able to find and bring up Othello's flaws without him noticing. Iago reminds me of the movie The Devil's Advocate starring Keanu Reeves and Al Pacino. Al Pacino is the devil in the movie and Reeves is his son, but he doesn't know until the end of the film. Al Pacino sends him a great job offer and Reeves accepts and flies to New York to work for an important law firm. Al Pacino, like Iago, knows Reeves weaknesses one being that Reeves has never lost a court case and he doesn't plan on losing ever. Al Pacino just silently controls him without him noticing. For example, Al Pacino, being the devil, makes Reeves' wife start seeing demonic and strange things around the house, when Reeves tells Al Pacino that his wife is going crazy Al Pacino tells him to quit an important case that Reeves is working on. Al Pacino knows what Reeves' reaction will be because he doesn't quit, Reeves tells Pacino that he doesn't want to quit the case because if he quits and his wife gets better he will hate her for him quitting. Al Pacino pokes fun at Reeves throughout the movie saying things like,"you can't always win" while laughing. I think that Al Pacino's character is very similar to Iago, making him the devil. Iago knows almost exactly what the reaction of the people he is controlling will be, except at the end when he is forced to kill Emilia because she was going to uncover his plan and is forced to improvise his plan, unless Iago also planned that as well.

Act 5 is the final act and it is when Iago's plan unravels and the tragedy of Othello begins to unfold. First Roderigo attacks Cassio, wounding him, but since it is dark nothing can be seen so Iago kills Roderigo and acts like he is trying to save Cassio. Othello walks on stage and hears Cassio screaming and thinks that Iago already began his plan to kill Cassio and Desdemona, so Othello has to do his part and kill Desdemona. Othello kills desdemona twice, I think that when he kills Desdemona he is imagining that she was still alive and he had began to go insane because of jealousy. One thing that strikes me as odd when I was reading the story was that after Graziano and Lodovico capture Iago they take him back to Othello, Othello stabs Iago wounding him but Iago still manages somehow to stab Emilia. Did they let Iago keep his sword on him when he was captured? I'm not sure if i missed that part, but if they let him keep his sword then I think there is something strange about that. I also think that Othello should have personally killed Iago by torturing him instead of killing himself, but maybe Othello was already crazy and brainwashed by Iago.



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